Hot to the Presses
My pastoral position is, officially, a 3/4 time position so I have been filling the other quarter or so of my working life at a large retail store that sells outdoor-inspired clothing in the Grand Forks mall (I still work there for about another week, so I can’t name the store on the blog).
For various reasons — e.g. scheduling, flexibility, personnel, life-suck — I have resigned from that position and intend/hope/am-crazy-to-think that I can make up the small amount of income writing. I’ve done a fair amount of writing for a 27 year-old, (see tab called “Writing” above), and up until now I’ve really enjoyed it. Now, I’m interested to see how I enjoyable I find writing when approached with more intentionality and consistency.
I’ve got a few projects lined up for the next six weeks or so, but keep me in mind if you have — or know of — any writing gigs that need gigging.
I just don’t know how more formal writing elsewhere will affect this here blog. I’ve kept it going for nearly three years, and with me in three very different places (intern/student/pastor and Scotland/Georgia/North Dakota). I’ve managed to pop out 417 posts, receive 168,000 hits, and almost 1500 comments. I really enjoy blogging, even when I can’t find the write out my ideas. It helps me look at the world through another lens. And though I will say I’ve felt overly tame and stodgy in my posts since I entered the call search process and received this call, the blog gives me a good outlet for reflection (even if most of my post’s comments occur on facebook these days rather than this wordpress blog).
So, world, there’s the update on my personal life and finances. If you have any brilliant words of advice, advise. If not, you still don’t need to call me “writer” just yet. “Adam” works plenty fine.
Pastor's Newsletter Column
still a bit of time before this goes to press; as always, I’d appreciate any comments
A Wee Word from the Pastor
I usually try to avoid the talking heads on TV, but in recent weeks Glenn Beck has made himself unavoidable. Perhaps you missed the media fracas—if so, consider yourself lucky. Perhaps you have not heard of Glenn Beck, the polarizing author, talk show host, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist—if so, bless you. But since Beck recently made some sweeping generalizations about Christians and Christianity that caused quite a stir, I figure I should probably write a little something in response.
To catch you up: on a recent television show Glenn Beck claimed that “social justice is a perversion of the Gospel” and urged Christians to leave their churches if their congregations preached “social justice,” or if their websites contained the words “social justice.”
On the surface, we Hallock Presbyterians are safe and sound—at least since I’ve been here. I checked: we don’t have a website with the words “social justice” (we don’t have a website at all!). And I did a computer word search of my sermons and the words “social” and “justice” have never appeared in the same sentence together. Whew!
But Beck, not known for apologizing or backing down, ramped up his rhetoric. After many Christians responded negatively to Beck’s critiques, starting petition campaigns and speaking out online, claiming that it is the call of all Christians everywhere to seek social justice, Beck took things to the next level. Beck dedicated a week of his show to fighting the Christian-based organization Sojourners’, and its founder Jim Wallis. Now Jim Wallis is another guy happy to spend some time in the spotlight. Wallis did so by peddling his books, (including “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It” and “Rediscovering Values”), but also by responding with sound judgment and helpful history.
In a recent Washington Post Op-Ed article “Christians Stand up to Glenn Beck” Wallis writes,
While the term has sometimes been used to support ideologies of the left and right, social justice is in fact a personal commitment to serve the poor and to attack the conditions that lead to poverty. These are some of the most passionate beliefs of a younger generation of Christians and one of their most compelling attractions to Jesus Christ.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the archetypal “social justice Christian” and the one from whom many of us have drawn inspiration. King inspired me to build movements for change, not to build big and tyrannical governments, as Beck has charged. King clearly called for more than private charity: He called for changing structures and, yes, for using the “government” to end racial segregation and establish voting rights for African Americans. And it was King acting in what he believed to be obedience to God, not a preference for totalitarian governments, that led to remarkable achievements of helping to realize a more just society.
Wallis is right to defend those of us who seek “social justice” in the world. Indeed, leaders in the Roman Catholic Church, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and even Glenn Beck’s own Mormon church have publically challenged Beck’s understanding of social justice.
The Presbyterian Church is no different. The six “great ends of the church” that are outlined in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are:
- The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind
- The shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the children of God
- The maintenance of divine worship
- The preservation of the truth
- The promotion of social righteousness
- The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world
It’s pretty near impossible to seek the full fellowship of God’s children without working for social justice. The “promotion of social righteousness” is integral to the PC(USA)’s essential purpose.
I will refrain here from any further cultural analysis of Glenn Beck or the justice-seeking state of the mainline church in the US at the moment. What social justice really looks like is a topic for another day, as are the ulterior motives of Beck’s show. But since First Pres Hallock doesn’t have a website, and since I haven’t said it explicitly from the pulpit in the past six months, let me be clear: Individually, and as a body of believers, an essential part of our response to God’s love is our call to seek social justice. Call it “mission,” call it “social justice,” call it “whirled peas”—whatever—but, with God’s help, let us seek it together.
"It's All Sermon Prep to Me"
When I was in high school and chatting with a teacher about our churches, he said “I don’t think I could ever respect a pastor who didn’t know Greek and Hebrew.” That statement stuck with me. Heck, it probably kept me going through some rather challenging times in both my Greek and Hebrew courses.
For a few years now, however, I’ve been wondering how much credence my teacher’s comment really has. I preached about forty sermons in Scotland two years ago without my Greek or Hebrew resources over there (I opted to take golf clubs, not books 
). I didn’t get too many complaints from church members about my lack of declining Greek nouns or parsing Hebrew verbs.
Now, though, I have my Greek and Hebrew books on my new pastor’s study bookshelf, but I haven’t been inclined to pull them out. Sure, I could check out a perplexing phrase in a text if I really wanted to, but I just rarely ever want to. So I wonder, what’s the rub: am I a sermon writing slacker or reality claiming time-manager?
The point, I suppose, is not that one uses Greek and Hebrew in one’s exegesis necessarily, but that sermons are well planned and delivered, deeply grounded in the word and call others to do the same. I’d never want to intimidate someone with knowledge of Biblical languages (what little knowledge I have), or put someone off with a flippant Greek or Hebrew remark in a sermon. On the other hand, I wonder what was the point of all those sweat and tears in Greek, Hebrew, and exegesis courses? Maybe they were supposed to teach me how to think, and did that. But how, also, might my sermon direction change if I took the time to read the original language each week?
When I have a conundrum, I often try to solve it with technology. The problem is, technology isn’t always the answer. (I don’t want to become like another Adam and blame my Weight Watchers struggles on the lack of iPhone app.) I do wonder, though, if investing in a good Bible translation program might provide me the added boost to work more with the original language? If you think so, what program for my Mac would you recommend?
And, in any sermon prep discussion I always wonder: and how might I involve our congregation more in the exegesis?
image by Renaudeh
Using the necessary words to set the record straight
Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.
St. Francis preached plenty, but he never used those words. That, at least, according to his biographer Mark Galli.
It’s one of those fantastic quotes that sometimes gets things just right. Us Christians tend to be a bit too wordy. Not enough action. So when one uses the quote, it feels only right to attribute it. And recent tradition has done so to St. Francis of Assisi.
But as Galli writes in the article “Speak the Gospel” in Christianity Today online, the quote wasn’t attributed to Francis in the first two hundred years following his death and, in actual fact, Francis was a darn good preacher of words — turns out that’s what made him famous in his own day.
It’s an overused quote, but a good one I suppose in a culture that likes its sound-bytes and emotive phrases. And, heck, I’ll probably refer to it again before too long. But, thanks to Mr. Galli, I shall do so without attribution. Those words seem necessary.
In a Word: The Presbyterian Writers Conference
I popped in and out of the Presbyterian Writers Conference the past few days at Columbia Seminary. I still have a few weeks of class left, so I didn’t get to take in as much of the conference as I would have liked were I not having to write term papers and final projects. Even so, I’m very glad to have gleaned what I did.
I love communication of all sorts, writing especially. It was helpful to see what sort of folks show up for a Presby Writers Conference — over 80, in fact! — and what sorts of questions they were asking. From what I could tell, the group seemed a good mix of pastors, teacher types, retirees, and folks considering writing as a profession.
A few things that struck me and you might care to read:
- writing is a tough, usually solitary, business
- it takes a good amount of time, and a bit of luck to make it big
- write what you like
- what you like may not sell
- what you have written is probably not marketable as is
- academic writing and more popular writing are two totally different animals
- it sure helps to have a PhD, connections connections, and a nice title after your name
I’ll stop there, but I will also say that I hadn’t realized how fortunate I’ve been to have a few things published and have something else in the pipeline. Sure, this work isn’t anything too fancy, but it turns out that an article here and an essay there ain’t nothing for a 26 year-old. Oh, and presenters kept telling folks to get a blog audience and all that. Well, you’re mine already 
Now off to decide whether I should pay the $25 and become a member of the Presbyterian Writers Guild — like I have the money, or the time…
image by typofi
Revisiting "Visitors"
Why do we call them “visitors?” Those folks who are worshiping in a community for the first time. Are we not all brothers and sisters in Christ, members of Christ’s body rather than an exclusive country club? You don’t visit a congregation, you worship with the saints of God in that particular area of God’s creation. “Visitor” sounds clinical, it says, “some are in, and you are out.” And it brings up the question: are there only “members” and “visitors?” Seems a bit limiting if you ask me.
So how about ditching the “visitors” and welcoming “those worshiping with us for the first time?”
Why the British Education System has it all WRONG!
As the new year approaches and we think back on the happy times of the past year, the sunsets, the laughs, the puppy dogs, and look forward to the new even better, lovely, adorable, and fun year to come, I take this time to COMPLAIN LOUDLY AND ANGRILY (or at least in all caps).
Here’s a HUGE pet peeve of mine:
The year, 2008, should be pronounced, “two thousand eight” or perhaps if you’re weird, “twenty oh eight” but NOT “two thousand and eight.”
It seems that British schools may be teaching their children to say the “and.” What do I say to that: “It’s just plain wrong!” The word “and” should not be said when speaking dates, or hymn numbers, or page numbers.
Mrs. Jones, my authoritative first grade teacher taught me about this, and she taught me good. Mrs. Jones said, “Only use the word “and” in a number when it refers to a decimal. (e.g. “159.57 is one hundred fifty-nine AND fifty-seven hundredths)
Ministers make this mistake all the time when they announce hymns. They’ll say, “The hymn is three hundred and sixty-eight.” If the say this, they are wrong. It would then be appropriate for the congregation to scream the correct hymn number in the correct way and refuse to sing until grammar justice prevails.
The hymn is “three hundred sixty-eight.” What’s with the “and?” It’s extraneous, confusing, and improper. Why? Because I’m American, and Mrs. Jones said so.
And while I’m at it, please pronounce dates after 2009 (that’s two thousand nine with no “and”) in the way we’ve been speaking for years.
2010 is twenty ten NOT two thousand ten
“Two thousand ten” is lengthy, silly, unsustainable, and just plain wrong.
If you haven’t heard of Grammar Girl, check her out here. Her most recent show is on dates. She’s generally pretty good, when she’s not WRONG!
Ok, caps lock off. I feel better now. Must calm down…
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